THE TELEGRAPH: Germany is fighting to keep sealed the Eichmann files detailing the years the Holocaust's chief logistics organiser spent on the run before he was captured by Mossad agents.
Those hoping to have a 50-year secrecy order overturned believe the government is embarrassed by details within that may prove German and Vatican officials colluded in his escape and freedom.
The secrecy order is being challenged in a benchmark court case against the BND, Germany's domestic intelligence service, which wants the 4,500 pages of documents on Adolf Eichmann to remain out of the public domain. The service claims that intelligence agencies in other countries will be "frightened off" in future data-sharing if they are disclosed, Der Spiegel reported.
Critics believe this is a smokescreen designed to avoid official embarrassment both in Berlin and the Vatican. It is well documented that German Bishop Alois Hudal in Rome operated postwar "Ratlines," getting passports for wanted Nazis to allow them to escape justice.
Franz Stangl, commandant of the Treblinka extermination camp, admitted to British Nazi expert Gitta Sereny that Hudal helped him get away after the Nazi defeat in 1945.
Eichmann also escaped. He was the ultimate "desk murderer" of the Third Reich who, as head of department IVB4 of the SS in Berlin, was responsible for the trains that carried millions to their deaths at extermination centres in Nazi occupied Poland. >>> Allan Hall in Berlin | Friday, March 12, 2010
DER SPIEGEL: Adolph Eichmann: Alle Artikel, Hintergründe und Fakten >>>
